May this sweet smell come to you, o Netjer.

[kiya]

[ Ah! An opportunity to use my icon labelled 'scents'! ]

My brother gave me a book about incense making for Christmas. (People who read the Cauldron and its boards would recognise it as the book Randall reviewed fairly recently.)

He also gave me a selection of random incenses (I suspect he went to one of those mall carts that sells stick incenses and got one of everything) and a box of stickless traditional Japanese meditational incense, some of which I'm burning at the moment.

I'm pondering incense now.

Well, incense and scented oil. (A bit of my brain is telling me that an appropriate base for the scented oils I might want to put together would be sweet almond, but I do want to try moringa just to have an excuse to have moringa oil about because I'm still fascinated with moringa trees.) But I want anointing oils, and all that good stuff.

But I need to try making some incense, need to try things. I'm wondering what sorts of scents might go with sage. I'm pondering trying things with the resins I bought a while back, too. And whole varieties of massive pondering.

Also, my brother is wicked cool. (And, with his typical typicality, was apparently on the front page of the Baltimore Sun today.)

Comments

[marykaykare.livejournal.com]

I did a very little incense making when I was studying Wicca. Made some Pele incense that I was quite happy with.

Almond oil is tradtional for these things, however it does have some scent of its own which you should take into account. I'm fighting off a cold right now and so have dragged out my essential oils. Had a long hot bath this afternoon with oil of thyme, eucalyptus, grapefruit, and rose geranium. The grapefruit should have been lemon, but I discovered at the last minute that I was out and so substituted something with many of the same properties and energy. This combination has been successful in the past at derailing colds and I do feel noticeably better know.

I'll be interested to hear your experiments.

MKK

[larksdream]

Your brother is quite distressingly grown up. :-P

[rainfallsautumn.livejournal.com]

I made an incense a long while back with a sage base that had (among the ingredients I actually *remember*) lavender and mugwort in it. Very nice for purification, although a bit too smoky to use indoors without a -lot- of ventilation.

As for oil bases, I'm partial to jojoba. Lasts a long time and doesn't really have a strong scent of its own. What's moringa? That's a new one on me.

[kiya]

This is my journal entry about the moringa tree. Bloody amazing stuff. (I first encountered it in the context of Egyptian ointments, I think, if I'm interpreting it right, so it has period qualities.)

[the-real-diana.livejournal.com]

On my trip to Japan, I picked up some Japanese incense, not really sure what it's supposed to be b/c there is no English on it. How do you get yours to burn like th normal kind? Maybe it's the humidity here in Hawaii year round, but mine just burns for a few minutes and then dies and I have to light it again.

Do you know where I could find pine tree smelling incense? Pine trees are my favorite smell so I stock up on the candles (or anything else I can find) around Christmas time. My mom found this Christmas incense ages ago but I've never been able to relocate it.

How is good old Jaime? I have really fond memories of him.

[kiya]

The stuff I have wants to be stuck upright in a pot of sand or something and lit; if it doesn't respond to that you may have either cheap-ass incense or a weather problem.

Find? I don't know. But I'm sure you (or someone) could make some with a starter supply of pine needles. Maybe I'll give that a go and give you some if it comes out well; I wonder where I could find pine needles easily that I can nick. . .

James is muddling through. He's got Crohns or some other godawful GI issue, which is making him miserable, not just because it's making him miserable but because he's turned into a bit of a foodie and can't eat much of anything. . . Aside from that he's in the tail end of college, enjoying his studies and doing pretty okay.

[larksdream]

James is muddling through. He's got Crohns or some other godawful GI issue

Oi. :-C My friend dreamsquirrel has that. Ungodly awful. I am so sorry. :-C :-C

[the-real-diana.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think I have a humidity issue. I tried to light some different stuff today and had the same problem. Maybe if I put the stuff in the oven on low? Well either it'll help or I'll have a really smelly house :)

How do you make incense? is it hard? That would be so cool. Pine needles are kind of hard to come by in Hawaii...:) But if it's too much time then don't trouble yourself.

I found that pre mixed henna that I used to use in HS on a website. I haven't tried to order but it looks pretty legit.
http://www.denacorp.com/Pages/metah.html

Where is Jaime in school?

[kiya]

I haven't made any yet -- I've got a how-to book and I'm trying to pick up good ideas for things to try with it. So I'm not so sure just now. ;)

Doing something evergreeny would be a good thing to try out, I think. We'll see how it comes out. . .


Jamie's at UMCP.

[the-real-diana.livejournal.com]

Thanks dude! I hope I get into BC so we can hang out!!!! I guess even VT is closer to you eh? Although it's hardly around the block.

What is he studying?

[kiya]

Hey, if we move in the next couple of years, one of the likely places is up near the Massachsuetts/New Hampshire border, which is pretty much right in the middle. ;} We're north of the city, and enough used to living in, like, Poolesville or Darnestown that a forty-five minute trip is normal. ;)

I'm even contemplating learning how to drive. How fucking scary is that? (Do you remember tooling around Monkey County after exams one day senior year looking for Pez?)


Jamie's doing poli-sci/sociology and stuff in that area.

[the-real-diana.livejournal.com]

It's beautiful up there! I'll totally visit you!

Driving is a necessary evil. I don't love doing it but it does enable me to "escape" when I need to.

Never underestimate the value of PEZ! :)

[kiya]

I'm terribly dim, by the way; it occurred to me as I got to keshwyn and jikharra's place and they were taking out their Christmas tree that that's a ready source of, like, needles.

How's fir do you for pine-y scents?

[the-real-diana.livejournal.com]

Anything pine tree smelling would be great. It's so weird, the only pine smelling thing that I can get year round is Pine Sol! :)

I'm sure I'm not the only one, I wonder why "sea spa" is a more common scent...